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Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Fukushima Daiichi - brief update

Two interesting stories are being carried at this moment by NHK News, Japan. I have seen no repetition of them elsewhere as of now. Briefly...

-TEPCO will conduct an examination of conditions inside the containment (that is to say inside the dry well) at Fukushima Daiichi No. 2 reactor plant using a long flexible scope. This television apparatus will be inserted through holes drilled in the building and containment next month. This is the first serious attempt to direclty ascertain the conditions inside the dry well and perhaps the condition of the lower end of the reactor pressure vessel. Previous attempts to determine conditions indirectly all failed.

-The Governor of Fukushima Prefecture has apparently told the TEPCO president that he will permit NO further reactor operation in Fukushima Prefecture. This will mean the decommissioning not only of the undamaged Fukushima Daiichi No. 5 and No. 6 plants (which this author predicted many, many months ago) but also the four intact and undamaged reactor plants at the Fukushima Daini generating station. This could of course place TEPCO in a further state of economic distress as it now will be unable to generate any revenue by operation of Fukushima Daini and will in fact be forced to undertake not only the operation to decommission four damaged plants, three with serious reactor accidents, but also now six undamaged but complete reactor plants - four of which are at a completely separate site. If this plays out as written now, it probably (in this writer's eyes) means further serious economic problems for TEPCO. TEPCO continues to deny rumors of nationalization.